JustRalph
03-07-2010, 06:09 PM
Mo Dowd writes a generic column on middle east failures. It says much more about who is in charge than she attempts to communicate. She may have well let one slip through that makes Obama look bad.
The guy can't get anybody to answer a pay phone in the middle east. So much for speaking to everyone in the middle east.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/opinion/07dowd.html
From the article:
The address of the first American president with Muslim roots was a bravura attempt to leech out the poison between the Islamic and Western worlds, and revive the moribund Middle East peace talks. But now, many disillusioned Muslims are echoing the all-talk, no-action refrain first popularized by the woman who became secretary of state.
“He said all the right words in his speech,” said Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister. “But the implementation took traditional roads.”
Privately, other highly placed princes in the family oil business groused louder. “Things are worse now than before,” asserted one, “because our hopes were so high after Cairo.”
Now Obama seems ineffectual, as Israel pushes ahead on 600 more new homes in East Jerusalem, where the Palestinians want their capital, despite the White House protest in November about 900 other houses that Israel plans to put up there.
I asked Prince Saud if he thinks America has less influence over Israel than it used to.
“You’re asking me about something that has tickled our imagination,” he replied. “If the settlements are illegitimate, the least you would expect is that the aid the United States gives to Israel would cut that part that is going to build settlements. Israel is getting away without implementing the Geneva Convention as an occupying authority. Now if it were somewhere else, in Burma or somewhere like that, hell would be raised.”
much more at the link
The guy can't get anybody to answer a pay phone in the middle east. So much for speaking to everyone in the middle east.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/opinion/07dowd.html
From the article:
The address of the first American president with Muslim roots was a bravura attempt to leech out the poison between the Islamic and Western worlds, and revive the moribund Middle East peace talks. But now, many disillusioned Muslims are echoing the all-talk, no-action refrain first popularized by the woman who became secretary of state.
“He said all the right words in his speech,” said Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister. “But the implementation took traditional roads.”
Privately, other highly placed princes in the family oil business groused louder. “Things are worse now than before,” asserted one, “because our hopes were so high after Cairo.”
Now Obama seems ineffectual, as Israel pushes ahead on 600 more new homes in East Jerusalem, where the Palestinians want their capital, despite the White House protest in November about 900 other houses that Israel plans to put up there.
I asked Prince Saud if he thinks America has less influence over Israel than it used to.
“You’re asking me about something that has tickled our imagination,” he replied. “If the settlements are illegitimate, the least you would expect is that the aid the United States gives to Israel would cut that part that is going to build settlements. Israel is getting away without implementing the Geneva Convention as an occupying authority. Now if it were somewhere else, in Burma or somewhere like that, hell would be raised.”
much more at the link